The Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF), published
by the National Council on Family Relations, is the leading research journal
in the family field and has been so for over sixty years. JMF features
original research and theory, research interpretation and reviews, and critical
discussion concerning all aspects of marriage, other forms of close relationships,
and families. The Journal also publishes book reviews.
Contributors to JMF come from a diversity of fields including
anthropology, demography, economics, history, psychology, and sociology, as
well as interdisciplinary fields such as human development and family sciences. JMF publishes
original theory and research using the variety of methods reflective of the
full range of social sciences, including quantitative, qualitative, and multimethod
designs. Integrative reviews as well as reports on methodological and statistical
advances are also welcome.JMF is issued quarterly, in February, May, August, and November
of each year. Each issue averages 284 pages in length. World wide, its circulation
is more than 6,200 copies.

The "moving wall" represents the time period between the last issue
available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal.
Moving walls are generally represented in years. In rare instances, a
publisher has elected to have a "zero" moving wall, so their current
issues are available in JSTOR shortly after publication.
Note: In calculating the moving wall, the current year is not counted.
For example, if the current year is 2008 and a journal has a 5 year
moving wall, articles from the year 2002 are available.

Terms Related to the Moving Wall

Fixed walls: Journals with no new volumes being added to the archive.

Absorbed: Journals that are combined with another title.

Complete: Journals that are no longer published or that have been
combined with another title.

Abstract

This study reviews the development of the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS). The MSS was designed to assess one's level of satisfaction toward his or her own marriage. Marital satisfaction was defined as an attitude of greater or lesser favorability toward one's own marital relationship. Measurement of the perception of one's marriage by means of an attitude scale was the focus of the effort. Design objectives for developing the measure were to generate a new set of items, to utilize a single-item style with an easy scoring system, to guard against contamination by marital conventionalization and social desirability, and to provide items which could reflect attitudinal change likely to occur as a result of marital intervention. Research results indicate that the instrument has very high internal consistency, sufficient test-retest reliability and validity, and a low degree of contamination with social desirability.